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Why art only becomes invaluable through the cleaning lady

The cleaning lady is not only some ordinary chick who cleans up our mess. Principally, any ordinary welfare recipient could do this as a 1 Euro job. No, the cleaning lady is enlightened with creativity, the art of the modern world would still stagnate on a stone-age level without her.

For example, the German artist Romana Menze-Kuhn was fortunate enough to benefit from the superior expertise of one of those gifted art enhancers. Menze-Kuhn could exhibit her beautiful artwork ‚Behausung 6/2016’ at the Philippus church in Mannheim, directly in front of the altar. Her work mainly consisted of crumpled up gold-colored rescue foil from a first aid box, which was impressively draped around a few wooden pallets so that it formed some kind of hut. In front of this hut the gifted artist placed casually, not to say quite loosely, some more crumpled up scraps of the decorative foil.” The whole thing symbolized a refugee accommodation with refugees standing in front of it. Menze-Kuhn wanted to express how little effort is needed to help people seeking protection.

However, without this explanation, the artwork rather reminded of Christmas trash. Namely, the pile of sparkling gift wrap after a large family unwrapped their presents. And that is how it came that the dutiful cleaning lady summarily threw the refugees into the trash while cleaning the church.

When the priestess wanted to present the great work of art to her congregation at Sunday’s church service, the only thing left were its sad remains in the form of a hut. After all, the present artist stayed calm and immediately had the idea to integrate the new situation in her artwork. She took the trashcan along with the thrown-out foil into the church and put it next to the remains of her artwork. The work of art improved by the cleaning lady could be viewed for another two weeks, then the rest was thrown in the trash as well.

In Dortmund, another cleaning lady also managed to improve an 800,000 Euro piece of art. Artist Martin Kippenberg, who is known for his uncompromising creativity, had given his work the impressive name „Wenn’s anfängt durch die Decke zu tropfen (When it starts dripping through the roof).” Kippenberger has been dead for many years, but his work lived on and was borrowed from its owner for an exhibition. The work consisted of a collection of artfully piled up wooden slats with a black rubber tub underneath showing a distinct lime stain.

However, the adept cleaning lady exposed the tub as trash and threw it out. This means that the artwork, reduced to its essentials, is probably twice as valuable and we advise the owner to pay the cleaning lady a part of the added value as a reward.

The famous artist Joseph Beuys also profited from the genius of his cleaning lady. Namely with his famous work „Fett-Ecke” (Greasy Corner). According to the plan of the artists, the grease applied in the corner was supposed to change its color and consistency over time and symbolize that everything changes – including humans – and eventually disappears altogether. But the cleaning lady didn’t want to wait that long – she scrubbed away the greasy spot as soon as she saw it.

Die Badewanne (The Bathtub) by Joseph Beuys is even more famous. The artist had completely covered that dirty thing with leucoplast. Probably so he would no longer have to see the dirt. This wonderful artwork was to be exhibited as part of a touring exhibition at the Morsebroich Castle in Leverkusen and was already stored there a few days before the exhibition.

In the meantime, the SPD Leverkusen Association held a grand party at the castle, and the two SPD members Hilde Müller and Marianne Klein proved that not only cleaning ladies were gifted art enhancers. The two wanted to wash the glasses after having a few drinks. They absolutely needed a container to do so.

Of course, the two girls found the plastered bathtub and suddenly felt their artistic urge crawling up their guts and into their creative brains. They pulled off the leucoplast, rinsed out the tub until it sparkled of cleanliness, and then they washed their glasses in it.

Unfortunately, neither the tub-owning art collector nor various judges had any knowledge of art, so the city of Wuppertal – as the borrower of the refined tub – had to pay the owner 56,000 DMark as compensation. No good deed goes unpunished…